8 October 2010 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL
The Municipality of Mardin will receive 15 donkeys from Italy to collect garbage in the city’s narrow streets.
The donkeys will arrive in Mardin in two weeks’ time. Mardin Mayor Beşir Ayanoğlu said 10 donkeys out of 48 that were used to collect garbage retired due to old age and other reasons. While noting that they had been looking for new garbage collector donkeys to replace the elder ones for a year, Ayanoğlu said Italian Ambassador to Turkey Carlo Marsili wanted to gift Sicilian donkeys to their municipality five months ago when he visited them. The mayor said they accepted the offer when they could not find donkeys to collect garbage. “The selected donkeys are used to carry garbage collected early in the mornings in the historic city’s narrow streets that are closed to traffic. Mardin has many narrow streets with stairs in which garbage can only be collected by donkeys.” “When a company from Ordu, which exports goods to Italy, said they could bring the donkeys to the city free of charge, we accepted. We expect 15 donkeys to arrive in Mardin in 15 days. After giving them a weeklong training, we will use them like the other donkeys,” the mayor said.Ayanoğlu also noted that he assigns importance to the donkeys being strong males. Meanwhile, Mardin residents reacted harshly to the donkeys being imported. One resident said the donkeys cannot adapt to Mardin’s conditions. An animal seller from the city said he did not agree with the mayor, who said they could not find donkeys. He said he can find them as many donkeys as they like. “The donkeys I can find are experienced. They can climb all kinds of stairs. But what do the donkeys from Italy know about stairs?”
